


But The Stars Collide

by calleigh_j



Category: Criminal Minds, The West Wing
Genre: Apocafic, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:42:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calleigh_j/pseuds/calleigh_j
Summary: A few months after the initial alien invasion, Kate Harper gets out of hospital and finds the efforts to save the world well underway, and a burgeoning relationship with a former FBI profiler





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Archived from LJ; originally posted for the apocabigbang in 2010 (27th March 2010); original notes can be found there
> 
> Thanks to my beta for helping me get my words out; title comes from 'Aftermath' (REM); chapter quotes from 'Bullets In My Hairdo' (Finn), 'Don't Choose The Wrong Way' (Andy White), 'One Of Our Submarines' (Thomas Dolby), 'Airwaves' (Thomas Dolby), 'Karma Police' (Radiohead), and 'Aftermath' (REM)

**Chapter One:**  
  
_The whistle of the sniper, the crashing of the bombs_  
_Put a spring back in my step, keeps me feeling young_  
  
She's running and running, and then blinking furiously as she hurtles out of the ship and onto the tarmac and finds herself nearly blinded by the summer sun. As much as she wishes these runs weren't necessary, Emily loves the adrenaline, the feel of her heart pumping fast and the blood pounding in her ears. She hears the sound of shooting from behind her and just keeps running, darting left and right and left again as she tries to make herself as difficult a target as possible to hit as she crosses the bridge. She's been lucky this run, just a few grazes and a sprained ankle. They hurt but she's still running and so she's lucky.  
  
To her right, she spots Morgan and changes course slightly to bring their paths to cross. As they get closer together, he grins broadly at her and she knows he finds the whole experience as exhilarating as she does. They match pace and run until they get back into the more built up areas of what remains of the city and out of range of the shipboard weapons. Ducking round a corner, Emily leans against a wall to catch her breath for a few seconds and flex her ankle. Morgan peers around the corner of the building.  
  
"There doesn't seem to be anyone following us," he remarks, breathing heavily.  
  
"I don't think they even knew we were there until we were leaving," Emily responds and she can't quite hide a wince when she tentatively puts her weight on her right ankle.  
  
"You okay?" Morgan asks as he looks down at her foot, concerned.  
  
"It'll be fine," Emily replies, "I just need to rest it and maybe put some ice on it."  
  
Morgan checks again and there's still no sign of pursuit, but still they jog back to the gates. They go through the normal routine - name, fingerprints, password - and then they're back to Alpha. Emily and Morgan part ways then as he heads back to base to give a report and Emily heads over to get her ankle checked out.  
  
Despite repairs, the George Washington University Hospital doesn't look anything like it used to. The large expanses of glass at the front of the building are boarded up, as are most of the windows along the right hand side. The glass porch is almost completely gone, just a few of the metal support beams still up. The walls are charred but they're incredibly lucky that the main body of the hospital is still intact. In the centre of Alpha, the hospital is one of their greatest assets. It's a lot less busy than it used to be as well: these days, a cold or a minor burn or a bout of the flu are far less likely to get people to the hospital. There's someone sitting behind the reception desk at the main entrance but he's not a receptionist: he's there to keep an eye on who's coming in and going out of the hospital. All the other entrances and exits have been closed up because as organised and orderly as their little community at Alpha is, there are valuable supplies and equipment in the hospital which need to be protected. Vital supplies are starting run out and if anything were to be stolen or go missing, it could have a devastating effect.  
  
The man recognises her though, she's been in here enough times, and waves her on through. She doesn't know the doctor on duty - it's surprising really how many medical professionals managed to survive the initial wave of the invasion - but she's perfectly pleasant as she probes Emily's ankle, moves it this way and that, and asks where it hurts. The conclusion is better than Emily had expected - it's just a strain rather than a sprain and she has orders to go home and rest and ice it. She's more than willing to comply with those instructions and limps out of the exam room and back out of the front doors. The adrenaline's wearing off now and the idea of medically advised rest is more than tempting.  
  
The walk to the Ritz-Carlton takes longer than it usually does but Emily likes having the chance to clear her head a little. The former hotel is on the edge of safe territory and where about a quarter of the survivors with weapons and tactical training are living. The rest are spread out at various points around Alpha but Emily's happy where she is. Even with the top floors severely damaged, and an obvious lack of room service, the Ritz-Carlton is still without a doubt a nice place to be staying. Most of the civilian population of the safe zone are living in the various houses and apartments left empty but Emily had felt uncomfortable about the idea of just moving into someone else's home, even if there was little chance that person would ever be returning to claim it.  
  
As she turns onto the right block, the radio at her waist starts to crackle.  
  
"This is the Wicked Witch," says Garcia, her voice distorted by static, "calling her flying monkeys back to the tower."  
  
Even with the steadily increasing pain in her ankle, Emily can't help but smile. Through all of this, Garcia hasn't changed one bit and Emily thinks she'd rather not be around to witness the day her friend stops smiling.  
  
"This is Prentiss," Emily says into the little speaker, "I'm on my way, just be a few more minutes."  
  
Over the open channel, she can hear the rest of the team checking in. She's the furthest away so she quickens her pace a little as she reaches the hotel lobby and heads towards the stairs. She's never much minded the fact that they can't use the elevators - they have a generator of limited capacity to power the building and elevators aren't even close to being a priority - but today, it just seems cruel as she drags her ever more tired body up seven flights of stairs. With a sigh of relief, she pushes open the door of the seventh floor and steps into the dark corridor. Windowless and lit only by emergency lighting, the corridors on all the above ground floors are always gloomy. Electricity is heavily restricted but there's something endlessly depressing about these hallways, all the same, lined with anonymous doors. Emily's always found hotel corridors mildly depressing - they remind her, she suspects, of her childhood - but these days, they're even more so.  
  
Her room is thankfully just a few doors down and although she knows she's needed downstairs, she takes a few minutes to change and prod her swollen ankle. She forgoes putting her boots back on as they're just too uncomfortable and instead goes with an extra pair of socks and heads back out into the corridor. Then it's back down the stairs, this time into the basement.  
  
Garcia's den of magic and mayhem is in what was once the security control room for the hotel. It's not exactly her office back at Quantico but considering the situation, it's an impressive space. The walls are covered in maps and blueprints, copies of those pinned to the walls of all the meeting rooms on the first floor, and computer monitors cover the desks. Usage of those is restricted too but they're high priority and so more often than not, they're all switched on.  
  
"How's your ankle?" Garcia asks without turning around. Emily's long since ceased to be impressed by this trick: reflections in a computer screen are a useful tool.  
  
"Just a little strain," Emily replies, "Need to see if I can raid the kitchen for some ice though. Did Morgan give you what he got?"  
  
"He did," Garcia confirms as Emily hands over her own camera.  
  
"How's the imaging going?" Emily asks.  
  
"Better and better," Garcia answers, "I think we must have about sixty percent of the main routes and the most important spaces - engine room, weapons storage, everywhere like that - covered by now. Still don't have anything about the command centre though."  
  
"No-one's ever made it in that far," Emily says pointlessly - Garcia knows that as well as she. In all the time they've been carrying out raids on the ship, no-one's ever managed to get into the command centre and back out with information. Seven people have tried and lost their lives doing so and so they're all under strict instructions not to even try getting in there until someone can come up with a decent plan.  
  
"I hope what I got is helpful," Emily adds as she watches Garcia plug in the camera and start to work her magic, "I took the left-hand corridor in instead of the right so hopefully that might flesh out the detail of the paths leading to the weapons storage."  
  
"It's great, sugar," Garcia replies absentmindedly, completely absorbed in her task, and Emily takes that as her cue to leave.  
  
Instead of going straight back to the stairs, she carries on down the corridor and into the kitchen.  
  
"Hey Bella," she calls, certain the woman will be around somewhere, "I'm just getting some ice for my ankle."  
  
"Sure thing," comes the reply from somewhere in the far right corner. Bella had been working as a sous-chef in the hotel kitchen the day of the invasion and volunteered to stay on and take charge of the kitchen. She runs the kitchen with an iron fist, more necessary than ever as their rations continue to dwindle.  
  
Emily pulls open the heavy door of the walk-in freezer and heads straight to the back where a small ice machine is kept. With the number of injuries people sustain, there's always someone who needs ice for something and so the machine is always running. Emily scoops the crushed ice into a sandwich bag, noting as she does so that there really aren't many left, and twists it shut. Shivering, she leaves the walk-in and heads to the small staircase at the side of the room that had once been used by waiters working in the restaurant directly above. She goes up to the ground floor and then up another staff staircase to the first floor. The meeting is, as always, in Washington meeting room, the third on the right, and Emily can hear from the muffled sounds of talking that it's already started.  
  
It's the usual group: Hotch, Reid, Rossi, JJ, and Morgan; various other FBI and CIA agents; a couple of a guys from ATF; a contingent of military personnel from different branches; and Nancy McNally. Emily isn't sure how they managed to get lucky enough to end up with Nancy McNally in their little corner of resistance but once the initial attack was over and the first clean-up began, she was there, organising everything. Emily's always been curious as to why she isn't in some bunker somewhere with the President, offering advice from deep underground, but she's loathe to ask in case somehow that makes Dr. McNally disappear. Without her, none of this would have happened, of that Emily is almost certain. Without Nancy McNally's cool head and years of experience, the survivors in around the D.C. area would probably have been picked off in a few weeks and that would have been that. Which isn't to say there aren't dozens of other experienced and highly trained people around, but somehow Dr. McNally's managed to bring them altogether, to inspire invaluable unity and loyalty.  
  
Emily slips as quietly as she can into a seat near the back of the room and takes another one to prop her foot up. She presses the ice against her ankle and looks to the front of the room. Standing beside Nancy is a woman Emily doesn't recognise. That in itself is strange: after five and a half months, she thought she knew everyone in their corner of Alpha. The woman has the pale complexion of someone who hasn't spent very much time outdoors recently and though none of them are exactly the picture of health at the moment, the new woman looks a little skinnier, a little more drawn than everyone else. Emily doesn't have to wonder about the other woman's identity for very long though.  
  
"This is Kate Harper, former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Bartlet," Dr. McNally says. Emily isn't exactly sure what the 'former' means: they've all gotten into the habit of referring to the jobs they used to hold and the things they used to do, but Emily is unsure whether the 'former' here refers to that, or if Kate Harper stopped working for President Bartlet before the invasion. It's pretty irrelevant but Emily finds her mind wandering anyway.  
  
"She was injured in the initial attack," Dr. McNally continues, "which is why she's only joining us now. However, now that she's fully recovered, I believe she will be of great help in our continuing fight against the K'larn. She's a member of the US Navy and a former CIA agent and has invaluable experience in covert operations and tactical assaults."  
  
Emily watches and Kate Harper seems decidedly nonplussed by the praise - it may not sound much like praise but Nancy McNally isn't one for effusive compliments - more interested in taking notice of the different people and groups in the room. Emily means to look away but then Kate glances in her direction and their eyes meet. Emily's a little embarrassed to have been caught staring but Kate holds her gaze, and so Emily keeps on looking. They look straight at each other until McNally asks for Kate's opinion on something and then, with an upwards quirk of her left eyebrow, Kate turns her attention to Dr. McNally.  
  
It's difficult to focus for the rest of the meeting as Emily finds her attention continually drawn back to Kate Harper. More than once, when she looks over, Kate's looking at her, an enigmatic expression on her face. Each time their eyes meet, Emily makes herself hold Kate's gaze. The other woman's expression remains indecipherable but there's an element of interest there and Emily can't deny that it would be nice to have some new faces around. But finally, with a quick round-up of everything that's happened in the past few days and a date and time set for the next meeting and the planning of the next raid, the meeting ends. Emily gets to her feet and winces as she does. Over the course of the meeting, she'd forgotten about her ankle and standing up is serving only to remind her that it hurts, and hurts a lot. She picks the bag that had originally held ice, and now is just full of lukewarm water. As she shifts her weight around, trying to work out just how much her ankle can take, she realises that there's someone standing beside her.  
  
"Hi," Emily hears, and she looks up and into the face of Kate Harper.  
  
"Hi," Emily echoes.  
  
"What happened to your ankle?" Kate asks, looking down at Emily's feet.  
  
"Twisted it coming out of the last raid," Emily replies with a small shrug, "Nothing bad, just painful. I'm Emily," she adds, "Emily Prentiss."  
  
"Kate Harper," Kate says, as if Nancy McNally hadn't introduced her not an hour previously.  
  
"Dr. McNally said you were injured," Emily says, "What happened?"  
  
"The building I was in at the time of the first attack was hit," Kate explains, "I was on the ground floor and when the building collapsed, I was pinned under concrete. I broke a few bones and had some swelling around my spine. Luckily, I was with Dr. McNally and she eventually managed to get me out. I ended up in the hospital and I've been stuck there ever since. They only let me out for the first time the other day." She says it very matter-of-factly, but Emily knows that if Kate's injuries kept her in hospital for over five months, they must have been incredibly serious.  
  
"I was lucky," Kate continues, "It's good to be out though."  
  
"I bet," Emily agrees, and then they fall into an awkward silence.  
  
By now, the room's emptied out and they're the only ones left. Emily glances down at her watch and is surprised: clearly the meeting went on longer than it felt like it had because it's far later than Emily would have guessed.  
  
"I was just going to head down to the dining room," Emily suggests, "Do you want to come? I could introduce you to people - I know how hard it is to come into the middle of something."  
  
"That would be great, thanks," Kate agrees, and motions for Emily to go ahead of her out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two:**  
  
_I know I shouldn't be writing about the weather_  
_Not with the war and all_  
  
New places, especially ones where she's going to spending any great length of time, are uncomfortable for Kate. She makes a mental note to give herself a full tour of the former hotel after she's eaten. At the very least, she needs to know exits and entrances, the quickest routes for getting in and out of the building, and any places that might be vulnerable to attack. She's supposed to be meeting with Penelope Garcia tomorrow as well. Apparently there's been something of a project to build up a detailed set of plans for the big K'larn ship with the eventual intention of getting in there to destroy it. She may not have been on any of the raids but that's going to change soon and hopefully with the help of the plans and the walkthrough, she'll have some idea of what she's going into.  
  
"Do you know Penelope Garcia?" she asks Emily as they walk - slowly - down the stairs. Emily's doing her best to walk normally but Kate knows from experience how painful an ankle injury, even a minor one, can be so she makes a conscious effort to slow her pace and not make the other woman feel bad.  
  
"Garcia?" Emily repeats, "Of course - we worked together at Quantico."  
  
And from that, Kate understands that Emily is...was an FBI agent. She kicks herself mentally for not having already found out, but she's been out of the game for months and she's just so glad to be in the company of other people again, so she'll allow herself a little leniency.  
  
"Garcia's the best at what she does," Emily assures Kate, "She can do things with a computer that I didn't even know were possible."  
  
"I'm supposed to be meeting with her tomorrow morning so she can take me over the plans and the pictures from inside the ship," Kate explains.  
  
"The pictures are amazing," Emily says with enthusiasm, pushing open the stairway door and stepping through to the ground floor corridor, "We've all been going in with cameras set on automatic and Garcia's put them together into a kind of visual guide of the ship, or at least the bits we've managed to make it into."  
  
"How are you still managing to get in?" Kate asks. There's still a lot that she hasn't been brought up to speed on and she hates being uninformed, especially about matters this important.  
  
"Garcia again," Emily replies, "She can explain it far better than I can, but as I understand it, their shields use some of rotating electromagnetic field. It's very effective, or it would be if Garcia, well, Garcia and Reid, hadn't figured out the pattern of changing frequencies. I honestly don't understand exactly what she did or how she did it, but she managed to find a way to temporarily disable the shield when it's working at various frequencies. She can only do it for a very short period of time and only in certain places - something to do with the proximity of the shield generator - so the timing has to be absolutely perfect, but it gives us anywhere from three to fifteen minutes inside. The shield apparently fluctuates a fair bit anyway, which Reid says might have something to do with the gravitational force here, so they don't seem to have worked out yet how we're getting in."  
  
Emily pushes open another door and Kate realises they've walked all the way down the corridor and she hasn't been paying any attention to her surroundings. But the smell of something delicious reaches her nose and she realises that she's genuinely hungry. She hasn't been properly hungry really since the attack: only in the past weeks has she managed to actually get through a full meal.  
  
"That smells amazing," she says appreciatively, following Emily over to a line of people queueing for whatever it is they're going to be eating.  
  
"Bella's done incredible things," Emily agrees, "It's getting more difficult now, we're really starting run out of things, but she usually manages to cobble together something good. It's not exactly Michelin star-worthy but considering where we are, it's amazing."  
  
"How is the food situation?" Kate asks. Emily seems to know the right people around here and Kate figures it's better than her constantly bombarding with Nancy McNally with questions.  
  
"It's...difficult," Emily says slowly, picking up two trays from a stack and handing one to Kate, "Again, we're lucky in that there was quite a lot of dried and canned food already here and in the other big hotels which was mostly undamaged by the attacks. There's also a warehouse just across the river that we managed to get a lot of dried goods out of. But flour's starting to run low, the canned fruits and vegetables are starting go off, and there's pretty much no meat left. They've started growing vegetables on the baseball pitches by the university but it'll be a while before any of those things are ready, and that's assuming they don't get destroyed in the meantime."  
  
Emily breaks off then to talk to one of the guys ladling food onto plates. Kate feels like she's back in high school again but understands the necessity of portion control when food is being rationed. She's not entirely sure what she's being served - something brown and stew-like - but it smells good and comes with fries so she's not complaining. She takes a glass of water, wishes it were coffee, and follows Emily over to a table. There are six people sitting down already: a young guy with glasses next to a slightly older, well-built African American; next to him is an older, Italian-looking man and by him, a blonde woman who looks to be a few years younger than Kate. Next to the blonde woman is another woman, this one with pigtails in her hair and bright, colourful make-up, and beside her is a man who's probably a few years older than Kate and the epitome, even in jeans and sweatshirt, of an FBI agent.  
  
"Kate Harper," Emily says as they reach the table, "This is my team. Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, David Rossi, JJ Jareau, Penelope Garcia, and Aaron Hotchner." She gestures at each person as she says their name and when Kate realises that the woman with the crazy hair and make-up is Penelope Garcia, she's more than surprised. She realises she shouldn't be, but she'd expected, for whatever reason, someone very serious, and Penelope Garcia doesn't appear to be that person at all.  
  
"You're my ten o'clock," Penelope Garcia says in recognition of Kate's name.  
  
"McNally's new number two," Morgan says to the others, and Kate remembers seeing his face during the meeting just a little earlier.  
  
"You're working with Nancy McNally?" Hotchner asks.  
  
"We worked together before the invasion," Kate explains, "I was injured and haven't been really been able to help at all until now but I'm all fixed up and ready to get out there."  
  
"I'm giving her the virtual tour tomorrow morning," Garcia says, grinning at her friends before turning to Kate, "You're my first guinea pig; the first person to get the walkthrough who hasn't actually been into the ship."  
  
"I'm looking forward to it," Kate says and surprises even herself by how much she means it. She's never been out of action for such an extended period of time before and the idea of being able to be useful again is definitely appealing.  
  
With introductions over, it's Emily's turn to talk as Morgan asks about her ankle, prompting everyone else to ask if she's really okay and if she's had it checked out. Emily rolls her eyes but dutifully answers all the questions and promises to put more ice on it later. Kate watches and listens and it feels almost as if things haven't changed for this small group of people. They were a team before the invasion and somehow, through luck and training, they've managed to remain a team. It's nice to be around people again but Kate feels a little isolated: these people all have history together and she has no idea where all the people she used to know are. Some of them are probably in the bunker with President Bartlet and his family, assuming they managed to round them all up in time. But the rest of the senior staff? She has no idea who among them might have had passes for the bunker. Every day as well, she thinks of her family, her sister and brother and their spouses and children. There would have been no bunker for them to hide in. She hopes that they're okay, that they found small groups of survivors like here in DC, but no-one has any idea what's going on in the rest of the country.  
  
Communication with the rest of the US and the rest of the world has been down since a couple hours since the first wave of attacks. The K'larn sent in smaller ships at first and took out power sources and communication towers. Kate guesses they must have been monitoring the planet for a while and is more than a little disturbed that despite all the satellites in orbit around the Earth, no-one spotted any sign of the K'larn until it was far too late. She doesn't remember much at all about the first few weeks of the occupation but from what she's been told, panic doesn't even begin to describe the atmosphere. It was the end of the world. Except it wasn't; they're still here, even if the world they knew has come to an end. By the time Kate was conscious and coherent enough to have things explained to her, the world had seemingly shrunk to a few square miles of D.C. She's heard from others that Nancy McNally was the driving force behind getting everyone into one place and trying to start work on some kind of defensive plan, though McNally herself seems reluctant to agree to having been that important.  
  
It's certainly an interesting plan. Kate's not sure it's what she would have done had she been in charge: spreading people out over a larger area and making it harder for them all to picked off sort of sounds like a better idea. With things the way they are now, they're certainly at risk of having their small colony of survivors obliterated by a single powerful weapon. That hasn't happened yet though and Kate has to wonder why. The K'larn have far more sophisticated weapons, more firepower, and surely are in a strong offensive position. Yet since the first few days of the invasion, their ship has been grounded just across the [NAME OF RIVER]. There are patrols, both in the air and on the ground, and there's no doubt that it's the K'larn who are in charge now and the humans who are fighting for survival, but Kate feels like there must be something they're all missing. It's not that it's exactly been easy, but why are they still alive?  
  
It's only the sudden noise of chairs being pushed back from the table that brings Kate out of her thoughts and alerts her to the fact that Emily and her friends all appear to have finished eating and be leaving. Kate looks down at her own plate and is surprised to see she's eaten it all: she was so lost in her own thoughts that she doesn't even know what the food tasted like.  
  
"Where are you headed to now?" Emily asks. She's still sitting down but has pushed her chair back and is clearly waiting for Kate's response.  
  
"I was just going to wander round the hotel a bit," Kate says, thinking of her earlier plan, "I just want to get an idea of the layout, quick exit routes, things like that."  
  
Emily nods in understanding and offers to go with her. Surprising herself again, Kate agrees to the company. Usually, she'd prefer to do something like this on her own but Emily's been nothing but helpful and interesting to talk to and honestly, Kate quite likes having someone new to talk to.  
  
Garcia's heading back down to her 'den' with Doctor Reid and the rest of Emily's team are, as far as Kate can tell, going to play poker or something like that. They all exchange goodnights and separate.  
  
"You seemed distracted over dinner," Emily says as they head slowly up to the top floor. Kate had suggested that they didn't need to cover all the floors, that she could do whatever was left on her own later, but Emily insists that her ankle isn't that bad and she's really not ready to go back to her room.  
  
"I was just thinking," Kate replies. Emily raises an eyebrow, inviting further explanation, and Kate relates her thoughts from earlier. Emily nods as Kate talks about the lack of communication and the odd way the K'larn seem to be leaving them alone when they could easily destroy them.  
  
"I think they're waiting," Emily says when Kate's finished speaking.  
  
"For what?" Kate asks.  
  
"Of that, I have no idea," Emily admits, "but you're completely right: they have the ability to destroy us in seconds and the fact that they haven't yet doesn't mean they don't plan to. I think there's something else going on that we don't know about. That's why we need to get into the command centre. There has to be something there that can tell us what they're planning."  
  
"But how would we know?" Kate asks, "Even if we did find plans, it's not as if we can read their language."  
  
"There has to be something there that we would be able to understand," Emily insists, "Blueprints, maps, something like that."  
  
Kate's not convinced that it could be that simple, but Emily's earnest belief is infectious and so Kate smiles and privately hopes that she's right. They finish the tour without bringing it up again as Kate asks questions about the changes they've made to the hotel and Emily does her best to answer them. By the time they get back to the ground floor, it's late; so late it's actually early the next day. Kate's still supposed to be staying in the hospital overnight, but curfew comes into effect as soon as it gets dark and it's been dark for a few hours already. She looks out of the front doors, past the guards, and into the darkness.  
  
"Where are you staying anyway?" Emily asks, following Kate's gaze.  
  
"Supposedly at the hospital," Kate replies ruefully, "but I don't think that's going to be happening tonight."  
  
"You're more than willing to share my room," Emily offers, "I mean, there are plenty of empty rooms around but I don't know what kind of condition they're in, and I have an extra bed..."  
  
"That would be great, thanks," Kate agrees, and she follows Emily back to her room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three:**  
  
 _The Baltic moon along the Northern seaboard_  
And down below, the Winter Boys are waiting for the storm  
  
"We could try going in this way," Emily suggests, pointing at the blueprint spread out in front of her on the large table. The conference facilities of the hotel have proven more than useful, with tables large enough to accommodate the oversized maps of the area and diagrams of the K'larn ships.   
  
"I thought that way had already been tried," Hotch questions as he looks at the line Emily's tracing with a pencil.  
  
"It has been," McNally agrees, "but not for a few months. We know a lot more about the ship now and if we can have a bit more time, Emily's right: we might be able to get somewhere from there. We're not learning anything new by constantly going for the same places."  
  
"I'll go in," offers Graham Edwardson, a former Army major. Other voices all around the room pipe up, offering their support of the idea and suggesting good teams.   
  
Emily tries to offer but McNally shuts her down before she can get the words fully out, assuring Emily that until her ankle is fully healed, she won't be involved in any raids. Emily slumps a little but she knows it's the right thing: if her ankle were to give way while she was in the ship, she could be trapped there and could put other people in danger if they tried to come after her. It makes her feel useless though, knowing that she'll be stuck her while others are out risking their lives.  
  
"I thought you'd be glad of the rest," JJ says as they file out of the room at the end of the meeting.  
  
"I should be," Emily agrees, "but I hate the idea that someone else's is going out there in my place. If they were to be hurt..." She doesn't need to finish the sentence. JJ understands the guilt that comes from staying behind.  
  
"How are you doing anyway?" Emily continues, pushing open the door at the top of the stairwell, "It seems like you and Reid have been locked in the communications room for days now and we've barely had a chance to speak."  
  
"I'm okay," JJ replies, looking away from Emily.  
  
For all that she's lost and all that she misses, Emily can't even begin to fathom how hard it must be for JJ, not knowing even whether Will and Henry are still alive.  
  
"It's hard," JJ says after a pause, "but I know there isn't anything I can do other than hope they're still okay and do whatever I can to destroy the K'larn and get them back."  
  
JJ's pragmatism astounds Emily. Emily remembers, and it seems so long ago, back at the Hankel house when JJ had asked her how she managed to deal with the things they saw every day. Emily's not certain her compartmentalisation skills could match what JJ must be doing every single day now. She tries not to ask about it too much - she doesn't want to force JJ to think about it all the time - but she knows how overwhelming things like this can be and she doesn't want JJ to get lost in her grief.   
  
"You know, if you need to talk..." Emily offers, as she always does.  
  
"Thanks," JJ replies, and they both know she won't. Emily suspects JJ's been talking to Hotch which makes sense, seeing as they're in the same situation. But in general, JJ avoids talking about Will or Henry and Emily can't blame her. None of them wants to spend time talking about the people and the things they've lost. They live from one day to the next because it's all they can do. Looking back is pointless, looking any further forward than a few days is so completely hypothetical as to be useless.  
  
"How's the new girl?" JJ asks as they reach the bottom of the stairs and step out into the corridor, heading down to Garcia's office and the communications room.  
  
"Kate?" Emily checks and JJ raises an eyebrow: who else could she possible have meant?  
  
"She's...interesting," Emily hedges, not sure enough of her own thoughts about Kate Harper to want to share them quite yet with JJ.  
  
They'd spoken a little more the night before when they got back to Emily's room. Emily had learnt a little more about what Kate's job in the White House had entailed, and in turn she'd shared what exactly her role in the FBI had been. But it had been late and they'd both been tired. When Emily had awoken, Kate had already left. Emily had been surprised to feel a little disappointed by that, and she's not entirely sure where the disappointment had come from.  
  
"I think she'll be able to help a lot," she says more certainly, "Her background is certainly good for us and McNally trusts her. I think she'll be good for us."  
  
Emily pushes open to door into Garcia's office and steps back to let JJ walk through first.  
  
"So, down there is the command centre, as far as we know," Garcia's saying to Kate, pointing out things on the largest of the computer screens.  
  
"But no-one's actually made it in there?" Kate asks.  
  
"No-one who's made it out again," Garcia confirms, "We really have no idea what happens in there but it's the centre of the ship, there are always people going to and from there, and we've managed to map out most of the other important places."  
  
"We're going to try and get someone in in a few days," Emily says and Kate and Garcia turn around: apparently neither of them had heard Emily and JJ come into the room.  
  
"What are they going to try this time?" Garcia asks. She knows all of the failed attempts and is clearly curious as to how anyone might be able to make this time be any different.  
  
"We're sending a team in this way," Emily says, stepping over to the wall where the blueprints of the ship are tacked out and tracing the suggested path with her finger, "It's a much longer way around but we haven't tried it in a while, so hopefully it'll take them longer to realise we're there, and if we can get to the command centre, then it'll be worth it."  
  
"What happened the last time you tried to send people in that way?" Kate asks as she looks at the blueprint.  
  
"We didn't lose anyone," JJ replies, "but we came close. There are just so many more places to be spotted and opportunities to be caught going that way. But we've tried over and over to get through going the shorter way and we haven't gotten anywhere. There's nothing more we can do until we know what goes on in that room, and maybe getting in there will allow us to learn something about what the K'larn are actually trying to do."  
  
"Garcia, I was just looking for..." Reid says as he comes out of the door against the back wall, "Oh, morning guys."  
  
Without even hearing what Reid's looking for, Garcia hands over a small black box and Reid smiles at her.  
  
"Have you seen the communications room?" Emily asks of Kate, gesturing towards the door Reid's left open.  
  
"I haven't," Kate replies.  
  
"I have to go up and see Doctor McNally," Reid says, already pushing open the door that leads onto the corridor, "but Emily can explain everything to you if you want to have a look around."  
  
"That would be great, thanks," Emily says to his rapidly retreating back.  
  
JJ sits down beside Garcia - since the invasion, she's become Garcia's unofficial assistant and they make a fairly formidable team - and Emily shows Kate through into the communications room. Originally, it was an annex to the security room that's become Garcia's office. Now, it's full of radios and speakers and various items of electrical equipment as Reid and a former Army technical officer named Collins try over and over to get in touch with anyone else who might still be alive. Occasionally, they also manage to pick up some kind of transmission from the K'larn ship but no-one's yet managed to figure out how they communicate from ship to ship so they're limited to whatever random chatter comes through the shortwave radios set up.  
  
"So, these are the receivers," Emily says, feeling a little as though she's on a game show, stepping to the side to announce the different prizes.  
  
There are seven working sets spread out over the large table along with another half dozen or so in various states. Emily's not sure whether they're in the process of being fixed or if the parts are just being salvaged to make something else.   
  
"Where did they all come from?" Kate asks.  
  
"There were a few in shops around here," Emily explains, "We found some more in some of the abandoned properties while we were trying to work out places for people to live, and then the university had a couple as well. I was really surprised how many we came up with, but Reid and Collins - he's an Army technical officer who specialises in communications - have managed to fix a lot of them up."  
  
"Have we actually received anything?" Kate asks, a doubtful look on her face.  
  
"Nothing from anyone from Earth," Emily replies with a rueful smile, "We get the occasional snippet of a K'larn transmission, but no-one's actually been able to work out how communication between their ships - and we're just assuming there are multiple ships here - even works. Collins reckons it's just due to the nature of the shortwave sets."  
  
"Do we have a transmitter?" Kate asks next. Emily watches as she walks around, picking up and examining the various different receivers. Emily guesses Kate probably has some experience with things like this: she certainly seems to know what she's doing as she turns the appliances over and over in her hands.  
  
"It's just over there," Emily answers, pointing to the corner of the room, "Reid and Collins broadcast from it once an hour between around eight in the morning and midnight on various different frequencies. So far, nothing. It seems like we're just sending words out there into the void and there's no-one listening."  
  
"I don't see how we can be the only people left," Kate says with more confidence than Emily's ever heard from her.  
  
"And you're basing that on what exactly?" Emily asks. She wants to believe Kate and figures the other woman must have a reason for saying that, but being positive after so much time is hard.  
  
"If everything went to plan, the President and members of the cabinet should be in the bunker, along with their families," Kate replies, "I know we didn't have much warning, any warning really, or enough time to do anything properly, but they ought to be safe. And there are a lot of people here. Relatively, I mean, given the attacks and our proximity to the ship. I cannot believe that there aren't other people who've survived. Either like us, in the big cities, or in the countryside, in smaller towns. Even if the K'larn have destroyed every single town and city in the country, I'm betting there are people who live off the grid, or just people who happened to be away from home in the national parks and things at the time of the attacks who survived."  
  
"That's an incredibly optimistic outlook," Emily comments. No matter how impossible she personally may find it to be constantly looking for the positive in their current situation, it's heartening to know that there are still people who can.  
  
"Maybe," Kate admits, "but human beings are incredibly resilient. Think about the people who've survived stuck on mountains in snow storms or trapped under buildings after natural disasters. It's only when we're faced with things like this that we realise our true strength."  
  
Emily raises an eyebrow and Kate ducks her head.  
  
"Okay, maybe that was a bit over the top, but we cannot be all that's left."  
  
"What if we are?" Emily asks, feeling oddly fatalistic.  
  
"Then we have to do as much as we can to destroy the K'larn and keep the human race alive," Kate replies, "There's really nothing else we can do."  
  
Kate says the last with a shrug, a note of realism after her idealism, and Emily smiles. It really is amazing to have a new person around, and Kate's not just any person. She's smart and funny and down to Earth, all qualities Emily admires and finds, much as she knows this is an incredibly inappropriate and awkward time to be feeling this, attractive. She tries not to make snap judgements about people, even in the current environment, because she knows as well as anyone how misleading first and even second and third impressions can be. But there are people, she firmly believes, who come into your life and who you know immediately are meant to be there. She can't shake the feeling that Kate is one of those people, regardless of the circumstances of their meeting and the state of the world.   
  
"Reid should be back soon to do the hourly attempt at contact," Emily says as she looks down at her watch, "I'm certain he'd be more than happy to explain things to you in more detail, if you want."  
  
"I actually have to go," Kate says, glancing down at her own watch, "I'm supposed to be meeting McNally to get fully briefed on all the latest plans, which should all make a lot more sense now that I've seen Garcia's walkthrough."  
  
Emily finds herself having to work to keep down a sudden feeling of disappointment until Kate adds, "I should be done by lunch though, if you wanted to get together then. I'm sure I'll have more questions and you seem very good at answering them."  
  
"I do my best," Emily says with an air of nonchalance.  
  
They make plans to meet in the dining room some time after one, depending on when Kate's meeting finishes, and then Kate leaves. Emily can hear her saying good bye to JJ and Garcia. She rubs her eyes with her hands and tries not to grimace. She can't help feeling like somewhere down the line, this is all going to end badly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four:**  
  
_Dampness of the wind, the airwaves_  
_Tension of the skin, the airwaves_  
 _I really should've seen through the airwaves_  
  
It's six days since Kate's been out of the hospital but it feels like so much longer. She's been on the go pretty much since that first meeting and it's exhilarating, although she obviously wishes none of it were necessary. Before the invasion, she'd been out of the field for a few years and she'd forgotten how much she enjoyed it, and just how good she was. Had the K'larn never come, she's sure she would have been happy to stay out of the field, but this unexpected chance to be back out there isn't entirely unwanted.  
  
So far, she's been on one raid and had her first up close look at the K'larn ship. It's big, certainly, but somehow not as big as it looks from across the river. It's definitely alien though. Everything about it is different and strange: the smell, the feel of the walls, the sound made by feet running along the floor. It's an oddly designed place with, for Kate's mind, far too many dark corners for people to hide around. Were she designing a ship, she'd want to make it as difficult for other people to get into as possible. It plays into their hands though that they can find places to hide when they hear the K'larn coming. She's seen the command centre, as part of the team that took the long way around and finally managed to get through the K'larn defences and into the huge rhomboid room at the centre of the ship.  
  
Regardless of their alien nature, the K'larn command centre had been oddly familiar to Kate. It reminded her of nothing so much as the central base for a CIA mission or the bridge on a Navy ship. The fact that she couldn't read any of the symbols or understand the conversations taking place didn't really make a difference. She could see all the things she would have expected to see in any command centre set up by humans. In the end, that isn't all that helpful: the inability to translate the information they managed to photograph is the real problem. But when she crept in through the open door and ducked behind a pillar, she'd remember what Emily said about how there had to be something in that room that could help them. Kate was right too - the fact that they can't understand the information means it's almost useless - but finding seemingly relevant information wasn't that difficult. Of course, it could turn out that all they've picked up are menus for the next two weeks, but they found heavy tablets with maps of the Earth and slightly distorted looking aerial photos of D.C. and the surrounding area and something tells Kate those things are probably relevant.  
  
"Hey, I heard you got into the command centre," a voice says from behind her and Kate turns around on the stairs to see Emily leaning over the rail a couple of floors up, dark hair falling around her face.  
  
Kate stops where she is and waits for Emily to reach her. It's been six days since she's been out of the hospital and six days since she met Emily Prentiss. That feels like so much longer as well. Kate knows how easy it is in a situation like this to become attached in inappropriate ways to inappropriate people. There are a limited number of people around and inevitably people will end up in pairs or in groups and the bonds within those groups are strong. But Kate feels like Emily is someone she could have known and liked before the whole world went to hell. Emily's someone she could have met at the gym or at a bar and they would have gotten on well, Kate's certain of that. But thinking about what could have happened doesn't do anyone any good. Knowing that doesn't stop Kate from thinking about it though.  
  
"So, what was it like?" Emily asks as she comes alongside Kate and they set off down the stairs together.  
  
"Strange, but not strange," Kate replies and she explains the bizarre comfort and familiarity she felt there, along with the frustration that they've found all this information but they don't know how to translate it.  
  
"Maybe Reid will be able to make something of it," Emily suggests but Kate knows that she knows that it's unlikely.  
  
"Are you heading down to Garcia's?" Kate asks.  
  
Emily nods, saying, "Yeah, she said this morning that she'd incorporated the new images into the video. What about you?"  
  
"I was going to give Collins a hand with one of the receivers," Kate explains, "There's a problem with one of the ones he and Reid were putting back together and it's a model very similar to one I've used before, so hopefully there might be something I know that they don't."  
  
"What exactly did you do when you were working for the CIA?" Emily asks suddenly.  
  
Kate's first reaction is to say that she can't say, that it's all classified and redacted and make the old joke about how she could tell her but then she'd have to kill her. Then she remembers that there really isn't a government or even anything close to one at the moment and her signature on the Official Secrets Act probably isn't worth the paper it was written on. Still, it's an strange feeling to know that for the first time in a very long time, she can actually talk about the things she's done. Stranger still is the feeling that she doesn't really want to. Her work has required her to do things she'd rather not think of and she likes Emily: she doesn't want to have to tell her about all the things she's done.  
  
"A lot of things," she hedges, "Under cover work, some analysis, advisory stuff. I was there a long time; I did a lot of things and I'd rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."  
  
Saying no is hard, refusing to give out information she no longer needs to keep back. It's one thing to not be allowed to tell people what you do and another entirely to choose not to. Kate's always been a little unsure of boundaries, preferring to reveal too little than too much, and it's hurt her relationships. People have left, husbands have left because she didn't know how to let them in, and wasn't even sure she wanted to anyway. Emily's hardly a husband, only just a friend, but still Kate worries that her refusal will end their barely-started relationship.  
  
"That's okay," is what Emily says and though Kate knows her face doesn't give anything away, inside she feels incredible relief. Both that she doesn't have to talk about things and that she's not going to lose whatever she might have with Emily over her unwillingness to talk.  
  
They walk down the last few remaining steps in silence, but it's not awkward. It feels like a silence between two people who've known one another far longer than a few days.  
  
"It's strange, this new world," Kate says as they near the door to Garcia's office, "the way it changes the relationships people have."  
  
"You think?" Emily asks.  
  
"It makes all the uncertainty and the rules seem so stupid," Kate replies, "Like we should just go for things, say what we really want to say because who knows if we'll still be around tomorrow."  
  
"Have you always been this philosophical?" Emily asks, a twinkle in her eye.  
  
"I don't think so," Kate replies with a grin.  
  
She pushes open the door of Garcia's office and is met by the sound of urgent voices coming from the communications room. She hurries straight through, holding onto the door just long enough for Emily to follow her through. In the communications room, Reid and Collins are learning over the large table, staring intensely at one of the receivers, while Garcia fiddles with the dials on the transmitter, currently on the table rather than in its usual place in the corner. It's only when Reid turns his head to look at them that Kate realises there's a voice coming from the receiver. It's male and distorted by static but coherent and comprehensible and Kate's so surprised to hear it that she completely misses what the voice is actually saying at first.  
  
"How did you get this information?" Reid's asking when Kate focuses again.  
  
"We raided the ship," the man says and Kate estimates he's probably in his late thirties or early forties, "We found maps of North America with different marks over different cities. We think the D.C. ship is the most important on this continent. There seem to be other cities with similar marks over them on other continents - Bangkok, Canberra, London, Rio di Janeiro, Mumbai. We're not sure exactly how they're selecting the cities - it seems to be a mixture of political capitals and population centres. There seems to be a countdown of some kind."  
  
"Counting down to what?" Collins asks as Reid frantically scribbles down notes.  
  
"We're not sure exactly," the voice replies, "but it seems to be counting down to seven days from now."  
  
The voice is lost for a few minutes in the static but then it comes back through, the man asking, "D.C., can you hear me?"  
  
"We're still here," Reid replies, "Sorry, we lost you for a bit."  
  
"I think we're losing the signal," the man says, "There's a storm coming in here. We'll keep this frequency open though and..."  
  
He says something else but Kate can't make it out through the crackle.  
  
"What the hell just happened?" Garcia asks, sounding a little dazed.  
  
"I'm going to find McNally," Collins says, pushing back his chair and hurrying from the room.  
  
"What happened?" Emily asks, echoing Garcia's question.  
  
"We'd just gotten one of the new receivers working," Reid replies, eyes still focussed on the receiver, "We were checking different frequencies and then there was a voice. He says his name's Darius Atley and he's a former Marine who was on leave visiting relatives in Chicago when the first attacks happened. They're in a similar situation to us and they've been trying, just like us, to get through to people for months. Apparently they got through to Phoenix last week."  
  
"What's going on?" McNally says as she pushes open the door, Collins right behind her.  
  
Reid repeats the entire conversation without even glancing down at his notes and Kate doesn't think she's even seen Nancy McNally so visibly shaken by something.  
  
"What about the countdown?" she asks when he's finished.  
  
"We don't know," he replies, "They were cut off before Darius could tell us anything else, not it sounds like they know anything else about it. All he said was that it seems to be counting down to a week from today."  
  
In Kate's experience, a countdown in a military situation is unlikely to be a countdown for anything good, at least for anyone who didn't plan said countdown. Right now, all she can think of are countdowns to weapons being fired and bombs being dropped. And in this situation, with alien ships apparently on the ground in at least three major US cities, it feels like nothing so much as a countdown to the end of the world.  
  
"It can't be a good thing," Emily says, vocalising what Kate had just been thinking.  
  
"We don't know that," Garcia says but she's drowned out by McNally saying that they need to call a meeting and form a plan of attack. Because Garcia's right; they don't know that the countdown is to something bad but they can't sit around and wait to find out.  
  
***  
  
It takes about forty-five minutes to get all the essential personnel into the meeting room on the first floor. All the chairs are taken and people are lining the walls. No-one outside of those of them who were in the room knows what's actually happened but they all know it has to be something big to require a meeting like that.  
  
"Hey, what's going on?" Morgan asks as he slips into the room, joining Hotch and Rossi just to the left of Emily. Emily starts to explain but then McNally walks in and the whole room falls silent.  
  
It doesn't take her long to explain the recent contact, news of which has whispers flying all around the room, and then she moves onto outlining potential plans and how they're going to go about finding out what the countdown is for and, if necessary (Kate's certain it will be), averting it. She divides people into teams: people to more closely examine everything they brought back from the raid on the command centre, people to work out the best routes to all the important locations on the ship, people to check weapons and people to work out who would be the best people to send in if they need to and who would be better staying behind. There's discussion as well, heated discussion, about what to tell the civilian population of their little colony, their little island. The higher-ranking military personnel are by and large in favour of keeping things quiet, but everyone else wants everything to be open. The word 'transparency' is thrown around a lot and Kate feels like she's back in the Situation Room, trying to weigh up the best military move against the best political move.  
  
Eventually, the conclusion is reached that everyone should be told what's going on. It would be impossible to keep everything a secret anyway and having everyone know to start with is probably the safest option. Which means there needs to be another group to go around informing everyone else of what's happened and what's likely to be happening over the next few days. Kate desperately wants not to be a part of that group. Honestly, she'd prefer to just hole up in the hotel until all of this is over. She knows how badly wrong this could all go and doesn't want to go out there and see all the hope and all the dreams that maybe they can put the world back to rights.  
  
Thankfully, Kate finds herself assigned to the group that will be putting together teams for what Kate sees as the inevitable raid. Emily's going to be working on find the quickest and safest ways into the ship as she's one of those who's been on the most raids. They part ways in the stairwell Emily goes down to Garcia's office with Reid and a few others and Kate heads to the makeshift armoury, down in the underground car park: the process of setting up teams is going to be heavily dependent on what weaponry they have, and Kate has a sinking feeling they're going to be sorely lacking.  
  
"Good luck," Emily says, catching Kate's right hand just before she goes through the door and into the corridor.  
  
"Yeah, you too," Kate mumbles but Emily's let go her hand and the door's almost closed already and she's not sure Emily can even hear her. It's not until she's down in the armoury, counting out magazines, that she realises she hadn't wanted Emily to let go.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five:**  
  
 _This is what you get_  
This is what you get  
This is what you get when you mess with us  
  
"It's a countdown to a co-ordinated attack," McNally announces in the third full meeting in as many days, "This morning, we were contacted by a group of Air Force and Marine personnel working in NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Apparently they have a language specialist there who was able to translate some of the information they had gathered from the K'larn ship outside Denver. There's a heavy concentration of military personnel in the area and they were able to pass information between Denver and Colorado Springs, and the team at NORAD. As of yet, we still don't have that many details suffice to say that four days from now, K'larn ships all over the world will be launching weapons designed to wipe out all remaining human life on Earth."  
  
She pauses while the information filters around the room, people turning to one another to express disbelief and horror and well-hidden fear. Emily looks around but doesn't speak: she's more interested in knowing what they're going to do about it.  
  
"We don't know as of yet why the K'larn have waited so long to launch this final attack," McNally continues, "but it's clear that we need to stop it. It is believed, judging from information gathered by Chicago and the NORAD team in Colorado, that the ship here in D.C. is the most important one in North America. So whilst all the other cities we've been in contact with will be doing their best to destroy the K'larn ships where they are, there is more responsibility on us here. We have no idea why this ship is the most important or if there are different things planned for here and the other cities marked differently, but we need to destroy this ship."  
  
Emily's exhausted already and as McNally starts going over the latest plans - shaped charges all over the K'larn ship - it's a struggle to stay awake. Everyone's been working around the clock since the first contact with Chicago and every time Emily stops for a minute, there's something else that needs to be done. It's as if the contact with Chicago opened up floodgates somewhere: they've spoken to people in Phoenix and Denver and Boston and San Francisco and everywhere in between. No contact as of yet from outside the US, but Emily imagines that if this many people have survived here, then there must be others all over the world.   
  
"It doesn't seem real, does it?" a voice asks quietly from her side and Emily smiles as she recognises Kate's voice.  
  
"I keep expecting Harrison Ford or someone to jump out from behind a wall with a huge space laser and start shooting things," Emily replies, turning slightly to look at Kate, "You've been locked up with McNally all day. What's going on?"  
  
"It's the NORAD thing," Kate answers as her gaze flicks back and forth between Emily and McNally, who's talking now about the plans for the following seventy-two hours, "It's...complicated."  
  
From the way Kate says that, Emily knows that what's going on at Cheyenne Mountain is more than NORAD, more than tracking Santa Claus. She's curious but she's learned not to push: Kate tells things in her own time, not before. Emily thinks that might be why they get on so well: she's the same way.  
  
"Good complicated or bad complicated?" is all she asks.  
  
"Good complicated, I think, I hope," Kate replies, "It's hard to tell - they've had problems there as well, partly to do with the K'larn and partly to do with other things, but we might not be as alone in this as we think."  
  
Emily's not certain what kind of problems could be on a level with a full-on alien invasion, but clearly they can't be anything good, nor can Kate's uncertainty over the situation be any good. But although Kate may not always be the most forthcoming person, Emily knows that she can trust what Kate says, no matter how lacking in detail it may be.   
  
"Look, I have to help McNally sort out final teams," Kate says apologetically as McNally finishes talking and people start to leave, "but I'll find you later and let you know if I've heard anything new, okay?"  
  
"Sure," Emily replies and then Kate's gone from the room. It's not as if she won't find out soon enough any updates to the plan - after all, she is supposed to be leading one of the teams - but the fact that Kate would take the time to come and tell her personally is nice, and comforting in a way Emily doesn't want to examine too closely. She doesn't have much time to examine her feelings closely anyway as she's needed back down in Garcia's office to finalise entry routes and where they're going to be putting the charges.  
  
***  
  
It's dark still, too early for the sun, six days after the first contact with Chicago. There are about thirty hours left on the countdown clock as they go through the final team assignments in the meeting room on the first floor. Emily's with Morgan, Graham Edwardson, and two former Marines - Kurt Bradley and Katie Gavalda. They're one of three teams charged with placing charges in the command centre, or at least as closed to it as they can get. The charges can either be detonated manually or by timer: the timer is what they're all supposed to be using if at all possible, but they've all accepted that manually detonating the charges is better than not detonating them at all. They've all accepted that they might not be coming back from this.  
  
Emily takes the weapon she's handed and goes through the checks, working on autopilot. Projectile weapons seem to have a limited effect on the K'larn, merely injuring where they would kill a human, but it's better than having nothing. If nothing else, they do usually manage to slow down the aliens. She's intimately familiar now with everyone single one of the limited selection of weapons in their armoury and has opted for a high-powered rifle along with her personal FBI-issue weapon.  
  
Across the room, she spots Kate, deep in conversation with McNally and Garcia. Understandably, Garcia's more than a little nervous about this whole endeavour as it's her job to bring down the shields in the right places at the right time. She's done it dozens of times before but there are far more people involved this time than there normally are, and so much more at stake. When Kate looks around the room, she catches Emily's eye and flashes a tense smile. Emily reflects the gesture, her own smile equally tight, before Morgan taps her on the shoulder to bring her attention back to the blueprint on the table so they can go over their route one final time.  
  
The whole room is fairly buzzing with anticipation. There's a low hum of conversation as people prepare themselves mentally and physically for this, the Final Battle. That's what everyone's calling it anyway: the Final Battle, capitalisation clearly audible. It's hardly a battle but there's a painful air of finality about the whole thing as Emily looks at all the people gathered in this little room and wonders how many of them won't be coming back. It's all happened so quickly as well. For months, they sat around with nothing really to do other go on raids which, after a few weeks, stopped teaching them anything new. And now, over the course of just a few days, everything's fallen into place and at last they're about to launch an attack.   
  
There's really nothing more for it now though than to check radios, check teams, and go. In the crowd of people, Emily manages to find JJ, Rossi, and Hotch and wish them good luck. Garcia and Reid are down in the basement and she's already said good bye to them. She can't find Kate though and the idea of going without saying something to her is painful, but there's no time. McNally gives one last, short pep talk - good luck, God speed, make us proud - and then they're filing out of the room and towards the staircase. Emily's so focussed on the task at hand that she doesn't realise Kate's beside her until she's being pulled out of line and behind the open door to the stairwell.  
  
They're mostly hidden from sight, and if everyone else is like her, Emily doesn't think they would be noticed were they standing stark naked in the middle of the corridor.   
  
"I just wanted to say good luck," Kate says, but her hand is still wrapped tightly around Emily's.  
  
All Emily can think is that in an hour, she might be dead and there are enough things that she regrets already with adding anything more to the list, so she leans forward and kisses Kate. Presses her back against the wall and kisses her hard, desperately, wishing they could be anywhere else.  
  
"If I make it out of there..." Emily says, and Kate doesn't try to correct her, just interrupts her.  
  
"I'll be waiting."   
  
It's Kate who initiates the second kiss and then Emily reluctantly pulls away and ducks around the door and into the stairwell. She jogs down the stairs until she finds her team and her place in line. Once they get out of the building, they split up to cross the bridge. They go as teams, staggering their departures all a few minutes apart. Emily's team is the second to go as they have the furthest to travel. They jog across the bridge, Emily acutely aware of the extra weight on her back. On the other side of the river, they head around to the left. When they're safely hidden a few hundred feet from where they should be going through the shield, Edwardson radios Garcia to let her know that they're in place. She tells them to sit tight and Emily curses under her breath: the waiting is going to drive her insane.  
  
"So, you and Kate Harper," Morgan mutters from her left side.  
  
"What?" Emily says, her head jerking round so she can look at Morgan.  
  
"Hey, I think it's great," Morgan protests, "She seems great."  
  
Emily thinks about protesting but decides it's just not worth it. She just grins instead, and then the radio crackles as Garcia tells them to go ahead.  
  
One by one, they leave their little clump of trees and sprint towards the shield. Emily's in the middle and she looks ahead as the shimmer that marks the shield blinks a few times, faltering, and then vanishes. Emily runs through and follows Morgan and Gavalda into the ship. She hopes that one day, they'll find out why the K'larn ships are the way they are, why despite all their technology, it's been so relatively easy to get inside them. This isn't the time to question their luck though so she banishes the thought from her mind and focusses back on the task at hand.   
  
Soon enough, she and Gavalda are tucking themselves into a darkened archway as the sounds of K'larn footsteps become audible. In the end, no-one comes down their hall, instead going straight past at the junction up ahead. Morgan gives the all clear signal and they creep forward to where their hallway crosses another and go right. They meet two other patrols on the way to the command centre, hiding behind wide square pillars and ducking into archways to keep out of sight. It takes about ten minutes for them to reach the entrance to the command centre. Peering out from a corner, Emily can see straight in, thoughts wandering briefly again to the question of why the K'larn don't seem to have actual doors - just archways leading from room to corridor to corridor to room. Bradley lifts Emily's pack from her back, takes out the charge, sets the timer, and hands it to her.   
  
Emily presses herself flat against the wall and, taking small sideways steps, edges into the command centre. There's a pillar directly to her right and she crosses the open space in a few steps. The charge sits at the base of the pillar, the timer stuck on top. Everything in the K'larn ship is white so the brown charge is definitely visible, but it's small and on the ground and hidden from sight of the main space. Emily checks one last time that the timer is correctly set and then inches back to the wall and out to the relative safety of the hallway.  
  
The journey back to their exit is even less eventful than the journey in and Emily can't help but think it's all been too easy. She knows she's right when Garcia's frantic voice comes over the radio to tell them that she can't get that part of the shield down, and Emily finds herself wishing that she hadn't left it until the last minute to kiss Kate.  
  
"They've changed the frequencies or something," she says, voice high and worried, "You need to go around and meet Hotch's team. Go to the right and follow the edge of the ship."  
  
They get back into their line and Morgan goes out first. K'larn patrols have often been seen guarding the ship from inside the shield and whereas inside, there were places for them to go, on the outside of the ship, there are no hiding places. The ship has never seemed so big to Emily and it seems to take forever but finally, they can see Hotch and the rest of his team crowded around an exit. They run the last few feet and are almost there when one of the K'larn appears on the other side of the exit and raises its weapon. Emily instinctively drops to the ground and can hear the others doing the same around her. That now familiar sound of a K'larn gun, some kind of laser weapon, rings in her ears, and then there's a far louder noise from above. Still on the ground, Emily rolls over and sees a ship overhead. It's not a K'larn ship, at least not of a type that she's ever seen before, and then it registers with her that the ship is firing at the K'larn.  
  
"The shield is open," Garcia's voice tells them from the radio, "Go now."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six:**  
  
 _And the aftermath, open up your eyes_  
You're so alive  
  
They're not that far away really, just across the river, and when the ship goes up, the sky turns red with flames and the rising sun. From the roof of the hotel, Kate has an incredible view of the K'larn ship exploding. It's hard to tell with all the smoke but she can just about make out a few small shapes disappearing away in the sky and makes one more mental note to get in contact with Colorado and thank the team inside Cheyenne Mountain - she doesn't know who else it could possibly be.  
  
And now it's a waiting game, stressful and full of fear, as they wait for people to come back across the bridge. Kate counts the small figures as they rush across, alone or in small groups. She can see a couple of people being carried and her heart sinks. She hurries away from the crowd on the roof, down the stairs and out of the hotel, going straight towards the hospital. It's full when she gets there with people back from the raid and people checking to see where their friends and family are. She goes from bay to bay, room to room, until she pokes her head around a curtain and finds Emily sitting on a bed, looking down at the floor.  
  
"Oh god," Kate says, heavy on an exhalation, and the words are beyond her control. Emily looks up from the floor and offers her a slightly shocked smile.  
  
"We blew up an alien spaceship," Emily says, eyes wide and voice trembling slightly.  
  
"You did," Kate confirms, sitting down beside Emily on the bed. Emily leans against her and Kate can almost feel the adrenaline fading from her body. Kate knows that feeling well, the come down after the mission, and feels it herself now, though probably not as strongly as Emily is.  
  
They sit in comfortable silence, exhausted by the events of the last few hours. Behind the curtain, nothing else matters except the fact that they're both still here, both still okay, both still alive. It doesn't take long for one of the doctors to come around.  
  
"I'll wait outside," Kate offers, standing up from the bed, but Emily grabs her hand.  
  
"Stay," she says, and Kate does.   
  
She stands beside the bed as the doctor runs through the basic examination and standard questions Kate remembers from time in the field. Emily's lucky: a few scratches and a couple of bruises are all she has to show from the destruction of the alien ship. While the examination is taking place, Emily asks about the people they brought in injured, and the total they lost to the attack is up to three, but the others are expected to make full recoveries. It's awful that they've lost people, but they all know it could have been so much worse.  
  
The crackling of Kate's radio, clipped to her belt, interrupts them and Kate excuses herself, stepping around the curtain.  
  
"Kate Harper," she says into the little speaker.  
  
"There'll be a briefing soon," McNally says without introducing herself, "We're still waiting to hear from the west coast and there's no point getting everyone together until we know exactly what's going on, but be ready to get here as soon as we hear from everyone."  
  
"Yes, Ma'am," Kate replies, but the static she hears tells her McNally is already gone.   
  
She just clipping the radio back to her belt when Emily pushes back the curtain.  
  
"I'm good to go," she announces with a grin, and it's less shaky than before.  
  
"Briefing should be happening soon, but we don't know exactly when yet," Kate says as they head towards the exit, "We don't know yet what's happening on the west coast and McNally doesn't want to give a briefing when we don't have all the information we need."  
  
"So I guess we have some free time then," Emily says.  
  
"I guess we do," Kate agrees.  
  
"I'm sorry," Emily says after a few moments of awkward silence, "About before, I mean. I don't usually go around just kissing people, but I was afraid that..."  
  
"Did you hear me complaining?" Kate points out, lowering her voice a little as they walk past another group of people coming into the hospital.  
  
"I'm just saying it doesn't have to mean anything if you don't want it to," Emily says, as clear a get out clause as Kate's ever heard.  
  
"And if I do want it to mean something?" Kate asks.  
  
"Then...dammit," Emily exclaims as her radio starts to crackle. It's McNally, calling them up for the briefing.  
  
"We can talk about it later," Kate suggests.  
  
"Later," Emily echoes as they speed up towards the hotel.  
  
***  
  
The view from the rooftop is so different now: no huge ship, no distant reminder of everything that's gone wrong. Even with the haze of smoke still hovering over the place where the ship stood, just a few hours earlier, it almost looks as if nothing ever changed.   
  
"What are we supposed to do now?" Emily asks. She's staring straight at where the ship had been, arms folded on the cold guard rail that surrounds the roof terrace.  
  
"We rebuild, I guess," Kate offers.   
  
"We have the parts," Emily intones in a low voice, "We can rebuild."  
  
Kate smiles and nudges Emily's shoulder with her own.  
  
"I just can't believe this is all real," Emily continues, "I mean, we destroyed an alien spaceship this morning and now we have to try and find a way to rebuild an entire country...an entire world, for all we know. How are we supposed to do that?"  
  
"We just have to try," Kate says, "That's all we can do."  
  
She pauses a moment and then asks, "Why didn't they ever attack? After the early raids, I mean. Why did they just sit there?"  
  
"I guess whatever they were counting down to could only be done at that specific time," Emily suggests, though they both know neither of them has any real answers, "Maybe the team down in Colorado, the ones who managed to translate the language, maybe they'll be able to tell us something. I think we just have to be grateful though," Emily adds, "If they'd kept going as they started out, we would all have been wiped out in a month. But for whatever reason, they couldn't, and so we survived. We got lucky. We did some things right too, but we got lucky."  
  
Kate hates the uncertainty of it all, though she's grateful of course that despite everything, humanity seems to have come out on top. But she hates not knowing the reasons why, hates that there are elements of what happened that they just can't explain.  
  
"Do you think we would have met," Emily asks after a long pause, "if all of this hadn't happened?"  
  
"Maybe," Kate replies, "Maybe at some government thing, or maybe in a bar somewhere."  
  
"So I guess this is where we have a deep and meaningful conversation about where this is all going," Kate says a few moments later.  
  
"Let's not talk about it. I think we just try," Emily says with a smirk, "That's all we can do."  
  
Kate elbows her in the side but she's grinning too now, because just a few days ago, she was still in hospital, still unsure of what was happening in the world outside, still uncertain that she wasn't dreaming it all. And now there's all of this - possibility and hope for the future and things that she would have rolled her eyes at before all of this. It's not that she believes that because they've destroyed a few ships, they've finished saving the world. The work they have ahead of them is probably more than any of them can imagine but it's better than what they had yesterday. And there's Emily...Emily about whom Kate knows almost nothing except that she likes her, and apparently Emily likes her back. There's something to be said too for relationships formed in the heat of battle.  
  
"What are you thinking about?" Emily asks.  
  
"Just about how different it looks without the ship there," Kate says, "How different everything looks now."  
  
"Looks a lot better now," Emily says and Kate agrees.  
  
She takes Emily's hand and squeezes it, and Emily squeezes back. They stand, side by side, and watch the smoke start to fade.


End file.
